New Political Body Seen as Big Step in Fight to Oust Assad, as It Seeks Arms, Recognition From Abroad

DOHA, Qatar—Syria's opposition formed a new political body designed to serve as a nerve center for the split antigovernment movement, in a breakthrough for activists and their foreign backers in their effort to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Opposition members signed the deal in the Qatari capital on Sunday, after nearly a week of discussions and under pressure from Arab and Western supporters to form a more representative and accountable body, 20 months into the deadly conflict.

The coalition will on Monday seek political recognition from the Arab League, as members say they expect broader recognition within months, marking a new drive in a political campaign against the Syrian regime that has waned as fighting in the civil conflict has stalemated.

ENLARGE

The new opposition coalition chose Moaz Khatib as its new leader.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The opposition still remains a long way from a transitional government of the kind that captured the confidence of the international community and helped Libyan rebels overthrow Moammar Gadhafi last year.

It faces a challenge in controlling the sprawling patchwork of rebel militias and councils fighting regime forces and, in some parts of the country, already governing rebel-held areas. And the new coalition could flounder in the coming days as it finalizes its administrative bodies.

But most dissidents—and foreign officials at the meeting—said it better represents a cross-section of the Syrians who have led the uprising since it began last year, removing some power from the exiled opposition leaders that activists in Syria have come to view as more of an obstacle than voice in their revolt.

Passing a key first test on Sunday, the roughly 60-member body elected as its president Moaz Khatib, a popular, moderate Sunni Muslim cleric who fled Syria this summer. Mr. Khatib, former imam of the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, is seen by many Syrians as a counterweight to more conservative or extremist elements in the opposition.

In his first speech, Mr. Khatib, 52 years old, vowed to rein in extremism and said Syrian fighters only sought freedom.

"The demands of our people were very simple from the start," he told a closing ceremony attended by the foreign ministers of Qatar, Turkey, Tunisia, representatives from other Arab countries, and Western diplomats. "Simply that any one of us would sleep without fear." He said Syrians were "wary of more killing" and the new coalition sought "a way to save our people."

The cleric and four deputies will lead the new National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces as it sets up a military council to serve as an eventual defense ministry and a judicial body, and elects a temporary cabinet. The coalition aims to administer the flow of funds and potentially arms to rebels, and has ruled out negotiations with the regime until Mr. Assad steps aside.

Qatar's Prime Minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, addressing rebel pleas for arms, said the international community had a duty to support Syrians with whatever they needed. Coalition leaders said Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates had offered "solid promises" to help rebel fighters at least defend themselves against regime warplanes and airstrikes, if not help turn the military balance in their favor.

Sunday's accord appeared to break through, for now, a cycle of deep distrust between opposition leaders vying for guarantees of tangible support from foreign backers, and those backers insisting the body needs to prove itself in action first.

The sticking point in talks for days has been what guarantees of financial and military aid the coalition can coax from its foreign allies as hostility among rebel forces has risen against the West for not arming them.

"It's always been a Catch-22, a question of which comes first," said Yaser Tabbara, a leading member of the initiative and an early founder of the Syrian National Council, or SNC, until now the major opposition coalition representing the uprising.

"I think the Syrian opposition has demonstrated strongly to the international community that we have arrived at what those inside Syria, and what the international community, is looking for," Mr. Tabbara said. "The ball is in their court now to take serious steps in the direction of recognizing this political body as legitimate."

The SNC, created over a year ago, has become increasingly less effective, its critics say, leading the U.S. and other allies to abandon their support the group and instead try to draw it into a new coalition. After some wrangling, it secured 40% of the seats in the new coalition. Unlike the SNC, the coalition has local representatives for each of Syria's 14 geographic provinces, which leaders say will help better connect the outside world to those leading the uprising inside Syria.

The coalition on Sunday also elected two vice presidents, Riad Seif, the ex-parliamentarian who led the plan, and Suhair Atassi, a female involved in the earliest peaceful protests last year.

Officials at the meeting said the coalition could get immediate financial support and possible political recognition in the coming weeks. A meeting in London of 20 main donors in the anti-Assad Friends of Syria coalition this week will work with the provincial representatives to assess emergency aid needs across the country. A Friends of Syria meeting in Morocco next month could grant political recognition to the body from over 80 countries, including the U.S., U.K. and most European states.

The Syrian government didn't immediately comment on the announcement from Doha, but has called the exiled opposition illegitimate and supportive of a terrorist insurgency.

"It's definitely an important breakthrough," a Western official working with the Syrian opposition said. "We will see how it holds and develops."

If set up successfully, the coalition would for the first time give civilian authority to the various local militias and military councils fighting the regime's forces in Syria, essentially giving political cover to international states wanting to funnel funds to rebel fighters.

Its founders say it has come together with tacit guarantees that Arab Gulf states will boost military aid to the rebels once a functioning, administrative body is in place to help centralize the flow of funds and arms, even if Western countries keep resisting directly arming the rebels.

They also say Qatar, which hosted the meeting and has led Arab states in the campaign against Mr. Assad, will treat the body as the main conduit for arms and money, even if other countries don't follow through with political or legal recognition for the body.

"The Qataris imply even if that does not happen, they will ensure that this body…will be a de facto military hub and power-broker," said a senior opposition member who has met with Qatari and Western diplomats daily for the past week.

Radwan Ziadeh, an SNC member who was initially opposed to the new initiative, said a key point was whether funds granted to the new coalition would also come "with the green light…to allow the Saudis and Qataris to provide advanced weapons."

The question of arms remains central to the body's ability to garner popular support in Syria, where activists and fighters are angry with political representatives they see as irrelevant to the daily bloodbath. Many greeted the announcement with cautious optimism.

"Good news, but we don't really care much," an activist in Damascus said, adding: "We care about what happens on the ground more."

Still, the new coalition appears to address most grievances with the Syrian National Council. By giving provincial representatives under a third of the seats and bringing in a number of independent activists, it lessens the influence of big political factions and the risk of infighting between them, most opposition members—even council members wary of losing power—say.

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